'OUR LITTLE LISA'
Russian rocket kills baby in stroller
Russia executed a brutal attack on a city in central Ukraine on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people, including a baby being pushed in a stroller by her mom.
Cruise missiles launched from a submarine in the Black Sea hammered the city of Vinnytsia, destroying a shopping mall and business center, according to Ukrainian officials.
Iryna Dmitrieva was taking her daughter Lisa to speech therapy class in Vinnytsia when the stroller was struck.
A Ukrainian nonprofit for children with Down syndrome said that they had known the family and that the pair “just happened to be in the wrong place and at the wrong time.”
“Today, our hearts are bleeding and our eyes are full of tears, because our multithousand family has lost one of ‘its own,’ ” the center wrote on Facebook.
“The greatest anger and pain is caused by the fact that this is a small, innocent child. Our child. Our little Lisa”
Iryna survived the attack but was in critical condition, despite early reports that she had died in the attack, as well.
Lisa was among three children killed in the strike, which President Volodymyr Zelensky called “an open act of terrorism.”
“There were eight rockets, two of which hit the center of the city. Twenty people have died, including three children. There is a large, large number of wounded,” Zelensky said during an address to European officials at The Hague.
The leader called Vinnytsia an “ordinary, peaceful city.” Home to around 370,000 people, the city is a target for the Kremlin because it is home to the command headquarters of Ukraine’s air force.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said at least 91 were wounded in the strike, more than half of them seriously. At least 42 people remain missing.
Video from the attack shows plumes of black smoke coming from a building in the city. Images show burned-out cars, destroyed buildings and rescue personnel trying to put out fires and search for survivors.
Ukraine is calling the attack a war crime.
“This is terrorism. Deliberate murder of civilians to spread fear. Russia is a terrorist state and must be legally recognized as such,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter.
Russia had not commented on the strike.
It came just a day after breakthrough discussions between the warring countries about grain exports ended on a hopeful note.